My Delight with Sarah Bartel

Epizode

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  Catholic Rom-Com Novels with Author Olivia Hope McCarthy 09.10.2026 58min

  Listen to Sarah and Catholic rom-com author Olivia Hope McCarthy chat about Olivia's novels... What inspired her to start writing clean rom-comsThe importance of finding outside interests when you're a mom and how that blesses your familyHow imagination and clean romance books can properly be used to spice up marriageOlivia's watch recommendationOlivia shares her favorite of her novels and talks through which one she'd recommend Sarah read nextMentioned in this episode: Your Blue Flame, by Je...
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  Sex is Not a Need 12.09.2026 39min

  Have you picked up the idea that sex is a need, especially for men? This idea is false. Sex is not a need. It's a desire. Believing that sex is a need for men in marriage puts a lot of pressure on wives, and it may be one reason that many women don't enjoy sex in their marriage. Speaking as a Catholic moral theologian, Sarah Bartel refutes this claim and counters with the Catholic view on sexual desire in official Church teaching. First, Sarah examines one book in which sex is pre...
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  "It Used to Seem Like So Much Work": Elizabeth's My Delight Success Story 03.09.2026 33min

  Married twelve years with four kids, Elizabeth and her husband mentor engaged couples for the church and teach sympto-thermal NFP through the Couple-to-Couple League. Raised in purity culture, they both assumed that by abstaining until marriage, sex would naturally just work great and keep getting better through the years. It wasn't getting better on its own, so Elizabeth enrolled in My Delight. In this interview, she candidly shares how the conversation went when she asked him about he...
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  3 Benefits to Learning NFP with Haley Yeager 25.08.2026 19min

  Haley Yeager is a Creighton Model FertiliCare NFP instructor and the host of the Truth and Fertility Podcast. Sarah asked her what she would say to a young engaged Catholic woman who doesn't think she'll need to learn NFP because she wants to have kids right away. Listen along to learn: 1. You might not get pregnant as quickly as you hope, and NFP is great for helping couples conceive. In fact, 76% of couples with normal fertility conceive on their first cycle using CreightonModel FertiliCare...
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  3 Perimenopause Tips with Rita Johnson 21.08.2026 13min

  Sarah sits with Catholic Health and Hormones expert Rita Johnson of Divine Mercy Nutritional Care to discuss how to thrive in perimenopause. Inspired by a conversation with the Lord in Adoration, Rita created "The Perimenopause Toolkit" a week-long workshop with a talk each day featuring the expertise of one of five Catholic women's health experts who gather to share about exercise, hormone replacement therapy considerations, hormonal knowledge, and marital intimacy through this season ...
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  A Positive Vision of Sex for Catholic Wives 09.07.2026 8min

  Catholic married women, have you ever thought that you might have limiting beliefs about sex in your marriage? Have you ever envisioned that you could experience sex with your husband as nourishingcomfortingrejuvenatingdelightfulplayfultendersweetwildand so much more! What gets in the way of these positive types of experiences? Obstacles can include an obligation sex mindset, lack of emotional connection, ignorance, or spousal selfishness. When obstacles are removed and problems ar...
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  15 Real Couples Shared What Their Marriage Needs--Emotional Connection 02.07.2026 39min

  Recently, Sarah invited her marriage ministry followers to reply to a simple question: "What Does Your Marriage Need Right Now"? She offered to take their marriage prayer intentions before Jesus in Adoration. Over 59 women and men answered. There was a common thread running through most of them. In today's episode, Sarah shares fifteen responses from Catholic wives and husbands. This privileged glimpse into the heart of real Catholic marriages illustrates what Our Lady says at the Weddi...
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  The Beach Mindset Vacation Your Marriage Actually Needs 🏝️ 24.06.2026 18min

  Maybe you don't need to work on your marriage right now. Maybe you need to rest, play, and relax more together. This creates a lush space for connection to naturally flourish. In this episode, Sarah explores why so many couples feel emotionally exhausted. They're in the daily grind, slowly drifting apart as they handle the real-world responsibilities of work, kids, household, and social commitments. Even Church commitments can add to this! What they need is not more work, but more play....
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  5 Ways to Encourage Each Other Better in Your Marriage 18.06.2026 23min

  It helps the bad times feel more bearable. It makes the good times even more joyful. Encouragement is magic for your marriage relationship. In this episode, Sarah shares how Nathan's encouragement transformed her late nights staying up creating her Catholic French language course, French with St. Thérèse. Learn five aspects to becoming a better encourager in your marriage, and learn what NOT to do when your husband or wife is struggling. 1. Know you are aligned with the voic...
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  Highlights from My Women's Pilgrimage to France! 🇫🇷 19.05.2026 1h 1min

  "I felt like I was embraced by St. Thérèse."🌹 What happened on the May 2026 women's pilgrimage to France? So many gifts, graces, encounters, and special moments! Even though Sarah got Covid on the way home, she would do it again in a heartbeat. In this episode she shares many of the highlights of the experience, along with the following links for you to explore further: 1. The Story of a Soul, by St. Thérèse of Lisieux 2. A Call to Deeper Love: The Family Correspondance of the Par...
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  Your Marriage Needs More AWE: Affection, Warmth, and Encouragement 💖 30.04.2026 10min

  If you want a good foundation in your marriage for those problem-solving, conflict-solving, tension-resolving conversations, you need to build rapport and connection first with AWE: Affection Warmth Encouragement This concept is developed in Jim Burns' book Creating and Intimate Marriage: Rekindle Romance through Affection, Warmth, and Encouragement. In this episode, you'll learn examples for how to pour in more AWE in your marriage with affirmation and gratitude, non-sexual touch,...
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  What about Wives Withholding Sex When They're Upset? 🤔 24.04.2026 19min

  Is it sinful for a wife to withhold sex when she's upset at her husband? Is it unfair if they've planned to make love, but then he does something to upset her, so she doesn't want to anymore? The truth is, emotional connection is the foundation for good lovemaking in marriage. If a wife is upset, she is not in a good place to make love. She shouldn't try to force her body to communicate a closeness, connection, and intimacy that her heart doesn't feel. If a wife is not experiencing phys...
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  10 Truths Every Catholic Bride (and Wife!) Should Know to Have Good Sex in Marriage 07.04.2026 27min

  Here's the episode with all the things married women wish someone had told them when they first got married. Maybe you've been married a while, and no one ever told you. It's not too late to learn! Maybe you're a newlywed, or about to get married. You're in a great place to learn good habits early, before you settle into practices in your marriage that work against good lovemaking--practices that are unhelpful, harmful, or even sinful. If you want help unpacking these Ten Truths further, you ...
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  Making Space in Your Brain for Lovemaking 🧠 31.03.2026 10min

  Your brain is your most important sexual organ. As you go through your days, weeks, months, and years, you need to make space in your brain for relaxation, creativity, fun, and pleasure... if you want to have those in lovemaking. You have to learn to periodically value other things more than productivity. -Connection -Rest -Play -Delight A woman in a chronic stress state is not going to be able to enjoy sex very much. In this episode, Sarah shares some examples for how you can slow down...
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  "Like Heaven on Earth": Megan Gephart's My Delight Success Story✨ 23.03.2026 28min

  When Megan Gephart first signed up for the My Delight course, her husband was deployed. She and her husband were both active duty military, and they wouldn't be together for months, but she was decided to use the time while he was away to start work on herself before. Years later, Megan is still seeing the fruits unfold in her marriage. She shares her story of the tremendous changes she made. 🍍 She decided not to push through pain any more--and to finally talk to her husband about it. 🍓...
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  A Husband's Perspective on Desire Differences... with Nathan Bartel 10.03.2026 17min

  Most marriages have one spouse who is more interested in sex, and another who is less interested. This is desire difference. While this is normal--most marriages have a desire difference one way or another--it causes a lot of tension in marriages. Sarah brings on her husband, Nathan, to talk about understanding desire difference from a husband's point of view at a deeper level. Beyond just physical libido, he shares about the yearning for connection with their wives he hears from men he's wor...
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  The Five Spiritual Attacks to Expect While Fasting... with Denise Jelinek 18.02.2026 42min

  When we fast, we can expect a pattern of five spiritual attacks--whether the fast is from food, behaviors like scrolling, people-pleasing, or other comforts. The enemy works in our false attachments: to things, to false gods, and to false comforts. He likes to get us to put something above God in our life, and that creates disorder. Fasting restores order. It puts God back as the center of our life. Of course the enemy will pursue our soul when we do this. Learn his tactics, learn that ...
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  3 Tips from the Song of Songs for Your Love Life 🌺 17.02.2026 12min

  It's almost Lent! Listen to the voice of the Lord speak: "I will lead her into the desert, and there I will speak to her heart." Hos 2:14 So many good Catholic married women feel like there's a desert of some kind in their love life. Maybe it's a libido desert, or a postpartum desert, or a menopause desert. Maybe it's the ache of not feeling as desired by your husband as you'd like. Maybe lovemaking just feels humdrum and routine So many different kinds of deserts! The scriptures can renew ou...
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  What is Sexual Coercion? with Jenny DuBay 03.02.2026 41min

  Making you feel guilty for saying "no." Wearing you down with asking over and over. You just want to get some sleep... the babies will be up at 5 am, so you just give in to get it over with. ...These are all examples of sexual coercion, which is a form of emotional abuse. Sarah is joined by Jenny DuBay, a certified trauma-informed Catholic coach, certified deconstructing gaslighting specialist, and certified narcissistic abuse specialist to talk about sexual coercion in marriage and the...
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  Nutrition, Libido, and Perimenopause with Rita Johnson 26.01.2026 33min

  How does nutrition impact our hormones for libido and perimenopause thriving? Sarah is joined by Catholic nutritionist Rita Johnson of the Health and Hormones podcast to chat about how what you eat can impact your libido and perimenopause hormones. Along the way they chat about the power of dreaming, mindset shifts, and four high-protein breakfast ideas to anchor your blood sugar and set you up for a stable day... the kind of day more likely to leave with with some extra energy fo...